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How to update BIOS on Acer Aspire 5520 [SOLVED]

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ckosloff
Posts: 500
Joined: 2011-12-29 15:08
Location: South Florida, USA

How to update BIOS on Acer Aspire 5520 [SOLVED]

#1 Post by ckosloff »

I am running into big trouble to install updated BIOS in an Acer Aspire 5520.
I have the BIOS, it is too big to fit on a floppy, so I burned a CD with the files.
This program will only run in Windows or DOS, and that is the problem.
This is what I tried:
Have floppy with Windows 98 SE, and USB floppy drive, computer will not start with option 1, CD-ROM support.
It did start without it, but now it won't start from USB floppy, tried another bootable floppy to no avail.
Got Free DOS in a unetbootin stick, does not work, cannot recognize CD-ROM.
I really don't want to go to the trouble of installing Windows to hard drive, just to update BIOS.
There must be a way to load a minimal DOS installation to RAM and then execute the BIOS program from there.
Thank you.
Last edited by ckosloff on 2012-01-22 04:52, edited 1 time in total.

dtl131
Posts: 449
Joined: 2011-07-11 19:56

Re: How to update BIOS on Acer Aspire 5520

#2 Post by dtl131 »

If you have freedos on a usb stick, can't you add the bios file? Even if you have to create another small fat partition on the stick?

Peppe
Posts: 177
Joined: 2007-01-01 13:16
Location: Sweden , Stockholm

Re: How to update BIOS on Acer Aspire 5520

#3 Post by Peppe »

I think that there's iso image available for freedos and other dos operation systems.
So you could by mounting the iso image as a device and copy the firmware program to the iso image and then unmount the iso image.
The iso image should now be bigger and you could either burn the image on a cd or use unetbootin and create a bootable usb stick.

If you have problems to boot on either cdrom or usb stick you can use plop bootmanger - which enables boot devices even when bios don't support it.
Plop supports boot from cdrom/dvdrom and usbstick but I don't think it supports usbfloppy or usbcdrom.

Regards, Peter
Running Debian Squeeze with xfce4 on a Fujitsu P7120 and a Asus ITX HTPC with Debian Squeeze with xfce4 . Debian just keeps getting better and better .

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ckosloff
Posts: 500
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Location: South Florida, USA

Re: How to update BIOS on Acer Aspire 5520

#4 Post by ckosloff »

I loaded FreeDOS on USB stick from unetbootin, it cannot manage this computer, all options throw error.
I might try to load without any drivers (only option that works), and attempt to add BIOS to stick, and invoke it from there.
Computer boots both from stick and CD drive, I have Win2K Pro (in CD and 4 diskettes), Win 98 SE, XP SP3, attempting to boot from media, no luck, and I don't want to hose the Debian installation just to load BIOS, there must be another way.
Another try could be burn a CD with Free DOS, but this OS does not see the USB stick , throws error, and I don't know how to add BIOS to .iso, creating another partition and navigating there could work, maybe.
BIOS on this computer is v. 1.08 very old and buggy, latest is v. 1.33, giving me lots of headaches.

yobo
Posts: 51
Joined: 2009-07-01 15:29

Re: How to update BIOS on Acer Aspire 5520

#5 Post by yobo »

Never tried bios update but when I search with the terms "linux bios update" there are many results that look interesting. For example DDG's first result is this: http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/howto-fla ... linux.html which has some promising links...

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ckosloff
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Re: How to update BIOS on Acer Aspire 5520

#6 Post by ckosloff »

I have updated BIOS in several computers, this one is extremely buggy.
This is what I did so far.
Installed FreeDOS from unetbootin to USB stick.
Copied files in there too.
Started computer from Stick, FreeDOS in safe mode (no drivers loaded), only option that would work.
In fact it is recommended to not load any additional drivers, just the DOS prompt.
Navigated to d: (my stick), dir found the BIOS files, so started the executable.
Started, 10% loaded, freeze, freeze, freeze, did not get to the point to flash BIOS, luckily.
It nearly destroyed computer.
Nothing loads correctly, not even Gparted live, Kill Disk, etc.
I am now re-installing Debian testing (wheezy) from businesscard.iso CD, Debian seems to manage this damn computer.
Basically, I need to make a DOS CD where I can also put the BIOS, a real DOS CD, because the DOS prompt will not see the BIOS in the USB stick.
Or, a real DOS boot stick, where I can also put files, although at this point I am not sure that DOS can manage this damn thing.
My last resort would be to completely hose drive, install Windoze, flash from there, then hose again, install Debian.
But I am stubborn, there must a solution along the guidelines above.
BTW, the link to DOS image in previous post is dead. :(

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ckosloff
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Re: How to update BIOS on Acer Aspire 5520

#7 Post by ckosloff »

SUCCESS!
This is what I did.
I had a CD with Windows 98 SE.
Booted to CD, selected option 2: start computer with CD-ROM support.
Navigated to d:, checked (dir) it was reading contents of CD.
Removed CD, popped in CD with BIOS files.
Checked again with dir command, it was reading files.
Invoked executable, it ran.
This stupid thing turned completely off after BIOS setup completely.
It scared me shitless, I thought that this time I had really hosed the damn box.
I turned it back on, not an easy task: you have to remove charger, then plug it back in.
F2 for setup, there it was, latest version 1.33.
But this didn't fix much, this computer is still a buggy piece of crap.
My advice: stay away from this laptop.

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